Reflective Essay of Dr. Alia Crum’s ‘Change Your Mind, Change the Game’
Dr. Alia Crum is a psychology professor at Stanford University, in her ‘Change your mind, change the game’ presentation at ted talk, she applies deductive reasoning to convince her audience. This method of reasoning refers to the process of from general to specific statements, to arrive at a particular conclusion, then linking the statement to the conclusion (Armat et al. 2018). For instance, during her presentation, (1.02—1.56), she starts the speech by giving the audience a group scientist in Italy. The story is intended to set a premise for her arguments, and also to draw the attention of the audience.
The activities that the scientists conduct represent the statements that drive towards explaining to the audience how the mind works. Secondly, Dr. Alia uses her experience to gain the trust of the audience; here, she applies inductive reasoning. Inductive reasoning is a logical process that moves from specific to generalized ideas (Armat et al. 2018). She introduces a topic of the placebo effect, where she describes it as a powerful and consistent demonstration of the mindset. Therefore she uses this to introduce the broader theme of the mindset. Hence the speaker applies both inductive and deductive reasoning to convince the audience.
Further, being a psychology professor, she applies some theories of psychology. Firstly(2.03—3.07) she uses conditioning theory, classical conditioning theory states that individual’s responses are conditioned by unrelated event, for instance, she gives a story of the patients have experienced less pain because they were aware of that anesthesia had been used compared to those who were not aware(Smith et al. 2017). Additionally, she applies the behaviorism theory to studying the behavior and responses of human beings at work. The behavioral theory states that the behavior of a human being is acquired via conditioning (Smith et al. 2017). Therefore the responses to stimuli determine the actions. In (12.53—14.04), she says workers were not aware of the job they were engaged in was part of the daily exercise.
Surprisingly after half of them were made aware that the job was part of daily exercise, they to lost weight, while those who were not aware did not lose weight. Additionally, (3.03—4.12) the patients who were aware of drug administration showed better results compared to those who were not aware; she argues that the response was due to the placebo effect and not the medication. The theories supported here intention of explaining to the audience how the mind can influence one action. Hence she concludes the audience by asking them to consider the mindset as an essential aspect of their lives.
To administer the message to the audience clearly and also to maintain their attention, Dr. Alia uses expressive body language. She uses proper facial expressions to enable the audience to follow the message, for instance (17.52—18.18), a joyful face when explaining the importance of mindset. Additionally, she also employs total variation; for example, [(12.01—12.54),(15.52—16.02)] she uses a high tone talking about those patients who recovered and a low tone for those who showed negative results. The importance of tonal variation is that it enables the speaker to stress the critical points of the presentation and also attracts the attention of the audience.
Lastly, the speaker uses gestures such as the movement of the hands, face, and other body parts and eye contact (Dolan, 2017). When explaining about studies conducted on the patients (13.03—13.45), she moves her hand as if the activity is taking place at the moment. Also, she maintains eye contact with the audience while moving from one side of the stage to another. According to(), proper use of gestures and non-verbal cues is vital in earning trust from the audience and also draw attention, while keeping them entertained throughout the presentation. At some point (17.43—17.46) in the presentation, she involves the audience through rhetorical questions, hence making them part of the presentation.
In conclusion, the mindset is the controller of the activities and the responses of human beings toward the surrounding conditions and the environment. Dr. Alia uses many research reports to explain the importance of mindset in the lives of individuals. Additionally, she uses psychological theories, such as behavioral psychology theory and conditioning theory. To ensure the audience is convinced with the arguments, she applies logical reasoning, which includes both inductive and deductive reasoning. Lastly, she presents using proper body movements, gestures, and appropriate tonal variations so as to attract and maintain the attention of the audience.
References
Armat, M. R., Assarroudi, A., Rad, M., Sharifi, H., & Heydari, A. (2018). Inductive and deductive: Ambiguous labels in qualitative content analysis. The Qualitative Report, 23(1), 219-221.
Smith, J. R., Haslam, A., & Haslam, S. A. (Eds.). (2017). Social psychology: Revisiting the classic studies. Sage.
Dolan, R. (2017). Effective presentation skills. FEMS microbiology letters, 364(24), fnx235.